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Indications for Egg Freezing

With egg freezing becoming more and more mainstream in today’s society, there are a variety of reasons why a woman (or a couple) might consider fertility preservation.

The facts:

The average age at first pregnancy in BC has now surpassed 31 years old.

The number 1 reason for egg freezing is lack of a partner with whom to start a family.

Most success rate data about frozen eggs comes from donor eggs as elective fertility preservation is still relatively new in Canada. Six frozen donor eggs (donor age < 30) have a 60-70% chance of successful pregnancy from elective single embryo transfer.

Indications and real examples:

Elective fertility preservation: Patient 1 was single when she froze her eggs at age 38. She conceived from the frozen eggs with a euploid embryo (an embryo that contains a normal number of chromosomes is a ‘euploid’ embryo)at age 42 when she met her partner.

Low ovarian reserve and no partner: Patient 2 froze eggs at age 37 due to a lack of partner. With a low AMH, each egg retrieval (3 cycles in total) resulted in 2-4 eggs. She now has a 4-year-old son from the frozen eggs and still has 1 embryo frozen and 3 more unfertilized eggs.

Sperm emergency: At 27, Patient 3 froze 22 eggs when her partner was unable to produce a sperm sample at the time of egg retrieval. The eggs were thawed on a day he was able to produce a sample and they now have a 6 month old daughter and 7 embryos frozen for future use.

Limited sperm availability: Patient 4 was a 38 year old female whose husband had 1 vial of surgically retrieved sperm shipped from overseas. She collected 2 cycles of eggs and then thawed and fertilized the frozen eggs with a fresh batch of eggs to produce her daughter.

Fertility preservation for cancer treatment or other disease such as endometriosis.